


Swear To My Bones

by WeAreAllKosh



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Morgana's search for self, Post-Game, Who's Ryuji's husband? I don't know, background Joker/Ann, cognition drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 15:57:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12938685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeAreAllKosh/pseuds/WeAreAllKosh
Summary: What happens to the Phantom Thieves following Persona 5, through Morgana's eyes. Fate pushes back against the Thieves...





	Swear To My Bones

Sticking with Joker had been one of his better ideas – Morgana was sure of it. If there was anybody he could count on to help him investigate whether he could truly become human after all, certainly that person was Joker. Besides, with Yaldaboath defeated and the Metaverse and his own Persona out of his reach, it wasn’t like he had any pressing business elsewhere. So it seemed only natural to go stay with his friend.

  
Sure, it was awkward at first when Ann came to visit that summer, and the love she and Joker had forged became fully evident. It was easier than he expected to get over his crush though; it wasn’t like a romantic relationship with her was possible when he was not, in fact, human after all. Far better to simply be happy for his two dearest friends. When they got into the same university, and moved to a small apartment together near campus, he came too. Ann’s modeling career grew, and graduating from university took longer than expected, but Morgana didn’t mind – he was far too interested in studying right alongside Joker.

  
Frizzy Hair had chosen to major in fields which allowed him to help others, of course – it was a lot of leg work to double major in social work and psychology, but he applied himself diligently and made it happen. Of course, nobody suspected that the bag he perpetually carried contained a largish cat in addition to his coursework, or that his hours spent studying were in collaboration with said cat… that would have been insane, right? But Morgana loved the subject matter, particularly the psychology, and felt that he was getting closer every day to divining some way to become truly human.

  
But as the years passed, it seemed more and more that while the Phantom Thieves had changed the Fate of the world, Fate would be extracting a price in exchange.

  
When Ann quite unexpectedly landed a major acting role, and managed to turn in an exquisite performance no less, it at first seemed like everything she and Joker could have hoped for. But as more offers came in and Ann spent more and more time away on location, their relationship was stretched nearly to the breaking point. Morgana did what he could to comfort each of them when times were hard, but he could only do so much. Eventually things settled out and the marriage reached a new equilibrium, but a lot of the early passion had cooled – love remained, but it still felt like loss.

  
Then came the news that Yusuke would not be joining the Thieves for any more shared meals or vacations. The news reported it as an accident, but those closest to him didn’t believe it. At first Sae thought it might have been a new case of mental shutdown that had led him to ride his bicycle out into traffic that way, but no evidence emerged to support that. Morgana hoped that wherever he might be now, he had found the beauty that he found so elusive.

  
As Joker – he would always be Joker as far as Morgana was concerned - continued his studies, garnering a third degree in philosophy and plowing through graduate school, Morgana slowly came to realize that while everybody around him was noticeably aging, he didn’t seem to be – certainly not at the rate a cat would be expected to. He shouldn’t have been surprised – he was a creature of cognition and not naturally of this world after all – but it still shook him. Eventually he came to accept it as a fact of his life, and put it out of his mind. There was so much else to be doing… helping Joker in his professional practice as only a cat might, searching for the secret of a human soul, and permitting himself to be happy as a true partner in Ann and Joker’s lives.

  
Morgana fully believed that the only thing that got him and Joker through it all when Ann’s health began to fail was their connection with each other, and with the other Phantoms. The 13 months between the diagnosis and when the cancer finally took her, despite all treatment could do, were the hardest thing he would ever experience, he knew – it was especially difficult when she was in the hospital, because Joker couldn’t sneak him in to visit with her. He was there at the end though, when all that could be done was to send her home and make her comfortable. “Ann Takamaki, wildly popular actress, dead at 38” the headlines read. Scarce mention of Joker, and no mention at all of Morgana of course. Ann would have laughed, mocked those loser reporters for missing the point.

  
\------

  
It was after Makoto that Morgana began to notice the change. It wasn’t until after the investigation, after the gang was prosecuted for her death, so much like that of her father, that it began to sink in though. With every passing of a Phantom Thief, of someone who knew him down to his heart, he was becoming lesser. More cat-like, less who he was. Further from human.

  
It made sense, he knew. He was a creature of the Metaverse, remaining in this world only through the cognition of others. Of course when the powerful personal bonds failed, the balance would shift towards the perceptions of strangers, who if they knew him at all knew only a cat. Who could not hear his voice. Knowing what was happening, and why, didn’t make it any easier to accept though.

  
Joker was next. It was his heart. He put so much of it out there for others, for who he could help, that it seemed in the end that he didn’t keep enough for himself. Morgana went to live with Oracle then, and after her stroke, with Noir. It was so hard to remember their names…

  
He could no longer remember what happened to her. He lived with Skull now – ugh, wouldn’t it just have to be Skull. They got along much better now than he remembered though. He barely talked these days, which probably wasn’t good. Skull couldn’t really hear him well now anyways, and his husband could only hear the cries of an upset cat – it worried the man when Skull rambled on at their Mona, made him think Skull was senile.

  
It was Skull’s knee that did it, in the end. The one that had never healed quite right. Mona found him laying on the kitchen floor, leg buckled and head bleeding. His breathing was shallow and his eyes glazed. The other man, Skull’s man, wasn’t there. There wasn’t much time – Mona was certain without knowing how that it would be a mistake to stay, that he would be better off outside where he could be free, when his last friend was gone. He whispered his goodbye in Skull’s ear, activated the emergency bracelet Skull wore on his wrist these days, and when the medics arrived to help his friend, slipped through the open door and away from human eyes.

  
\------

  
He hunted. It wasn’t as cold as it had been, and there was more prey. That was good. He was tired of being hungry. He was tired in general. His joints hurt, and his claws didn’t retract all the way. They used to, right? And wasn’t his fur thicker and darker than this?

  
He heard it then, nearby – yipping, and the tearing canvas sound of a cat’s war cry. He should have run, he did not need to fight, but there was something about that sound… and a distressed kitten, still very young, tumbled out of a bush, fleeing as best it could from the sound.

  
He charged. The fox didn’t see him coming, too preoccupied with the young mother it was savaging. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t just, and…

  
It was like a bell rung inside his head. A word, a name, forgotten until now. _Mercurius_. Morgana still felt the rage, but was above it. For a split second, it all came back, he was all himself and another self with him, and a split second was all it took. The woods shook to the sudden gale. Then he was falling, falling, so tired, so very tired…

  
\------

  
Morgana awoke. He was in a bed, he could tell, though he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there. The covers were very soft, and he was a little warmer than he’d like. He grabbed them and pulled them down a bit to let some of the heat out, which was much nicer and…

  
Wait. He _grabbed_ them? His eyes shot open. He had hands, human hands! He stared for a long moment, hands bright against a blue ceiling, and knew where he was.

  
He found a uniform waiting for him, laid out on a wardrobe near the foot of the bed, and put it on. His creator would be waiting for him, now that he had found his true form, and Morgana knew that there would be much for them to do. He strode through the door.


End file.
